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CHAPTER 11 Struggling Readers PURPOSE The purpose of this chapter is to explore important ways that teachers can respond to the literacy needs of struggling readers by scaffolding instruction so that students become aware of and competent with strategies that support learning with text.
UNDERLYING CONCEPTS 1.
Even good readers struggle with reading at some time and they need to know how to effectively deal with text that is difficult.
2.
Struggling readers need assistance in metacognitive strategies that help them understand the process of understanding text.
3.
Comprehension strategies that can assist struggling readers, as well as all readers, include QARs, reciprocal teaching, and think alouds.
4.
Vocabulary strategies that can assist struggling readers, as well as all readers, include Concept of Definition (CD) Maps and Vocabulary Self-Selection (VSS).
5.
Teachers need to develop systematic vocabulary learning strategies for students if they are to develop competency in content area terminology.
STUDENT OBJECTIVES 1.
Students will gain an appreciation for the variety of challenges that content area textbook reading poses to students who struggle with reading.
2.
Students will demonstrate an understanding that each content area presents students with challenging reading tasks.
3.
Students will add additional comprehension strategies to their repertoire of strategies that can be implemented to develop students’ understanding of difficult content area text material.
4.
Students will add to their repertoire of strategies, additional vocabulary and word study strategies that can be implemented to develop students’ understanding of the knowledge of technical vocabulary specific to the content areas.
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ACTIVITIES AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS Prereading 1.
Using the graphic organizer at the beginning of the chapter, explain how the content of the chapter relates to the title.
2.
Have the students share a time when they may have struggled with reading a particular text. Use the responses as a springboard for discussion on the challenges some textspresent to readers.
3.
Have the students share their experiences with locating and reading information on the internet. What kinds of reading and viewing challenges did they meet? Use the responses as a springboard for discussing literacy demands of the 21st century.
4.
Have the students respond to the following statement : “When a text becomes confusing or doesn’t make sense, good learners recognize that they have a repertoire of literacy strategies at their command which they can use to work themselves out of difficulty.” Use the responses as a springboard for discussing effective learning strategies with difficult text.
5.
Have the students share a task in which they felt challenged (e. g., driving a car for the first time, trying out for a team sport, cooking a gourmet recipe). Did they persist in the task? What made them persist or quit?
6.
Selected true – false statements and/or multiple choice test questions might be used as a pre-assessment.
7.
Selected true – false statements might be used as a springboard for discussion and to determine student prior knowledge.
During Reading 8.
Use the following statement as a springboard for reviewing how to develop metacognitive strategies: “Reading is a strategic act, which is another way of saying that successful readers use cognitive and metacognitive strategies so they can understand, respond to, and even question and challenge the author’s ideas.”
9.
Have the students respond to the following statement: “Teachers need to know if students know enough about their own learning strategies to approach content area text assignments flexibly and adaptively.” Use student responses as a springboard for discussing flexible reading strategies.
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93 10.
After reading the suggestions in the textbook for assessing students’ knowledge about their strategic learning habits, have the students develop their own questionnaires in which they assess learning habits in specific content areas.
After Reading 11.
Have each preservice teacher interview a student using the questions from the Metacognitive Reading Awareness Inventory. Share findings with the class.
12.
Have the students work in small groups and lead discussions of why particular strategies are useful. What is the payoff for students? How do the strategies improve learning with text?
13.
In small groups, have the students design posters that list the steps to particular strategies. Share the posters with the entire class and walk through the steps.
14.
Have each student select a strategy from the textbook to demonstrate. Each student should prepare a lesson to demonstrate with peers.
15.
Have the preservice teachers design homework activities in which students need to practice a strategy explained in the textbook.
16.
After reading about think-alouds, have each student work with a partner to model the strategy using a web site17. Using content area textbooks of their choice, have students work in small groups and design concept of definition word maps on chart paper. Word maps can be shared with the whole class.
18.
Have the students work in small groups to discuss the following scenario: You have 8 students in your class who are struggling readers. How will you address this issue?
Chapter 11 SHORT ANSWER QUESTIONS True/False Test Items ___11.1 Struggling readers often lack strategies to learn effectively with text. Answer: T ___11.2 All readers will, at sometime, struggle with reading text. Answer: T
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94 ___11.3 The difference between good readers and struggling readers is that when good readers struggle with text, they have the vocabulary skills to get out of trouble. Answer: F ___11.4 Struggling readers spend so much of their time trying to "say the words" that comprehension suffers and, as a result, the reading process breaks down. Answer: T ___11.5 Because reading is situational and depends on the task at hand, low-achieving students tend to be the only ones who struggle with reading. Answer: F ___11.6 Cognition is one's ability to think about and control one's own learning. Answer: F ___11.7 When reading print text material, the student needs to be only aware of the words and the words’ relationship to each other. Answer: F ___11.8 Strategy instruction needs to go beyond the awareness of strategies. Answer: T ___11.9 Assessment of strategy understanding and usage should occur when the students are using strategies while taking a content area test. Answer: F ___11.10 The best way to teach the think-aloud strategy is through teacher modelling. Answer: T ___11.11 Think-alouds are best used at the end of the lesson. Answer: F ___11.12 Reciprocal teaching utilizes four comprehension activities (predicting, summarizing, encoding, generating questions). Answer: F
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95 ___11.13 Textually explicit information leads to answers that are "author and you." Answer: F ___11.14 Reciprocal teaching makes explicit to students the relationships that exist among the type of question asked, the text, and the reader's prior knowledge. Answer: F ___11.15 The vocabulary strategy that encourages students to nominate words they would like to know about is called VSS. Answer: T ___11.16 It is important to teach vocabulary strategies because words in a text passage often provide only partial contextual information for defining the meaning of a concept. Answer: T ___11.17 CD word map is a good after reading activity in order to have students define a
list of words at the end of the chapter. Answer: F ___11.18 Constructing meaning from context is one of the most useful strategies at the command of proficient readers. Answer: T ___11.19 The use of context to construct meaning is primarily a matter of making applied level decisions. Answer: F ___11.20 The word itself always provides information clues about its meaning. Answer: T ___11.21 Knowing when to use the dictionary is as important as knowing how to use it. Answer: T
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Multiple Choice 11.1
Through the use of __________, struggling readers can develop strategies to help them learn from text. a. implicit instruction b. explicit instruction c. group instruction d. lecture
Answer: b 11.2
Skilled readers have at their command __________ for reading. a. decoding skills b. one main strategy c. vocabulary skills d. multiple strategies
Answer: d 11.3
All of the following are characteristics of a struggling reader except: a. lacks fluency b. has trouble decoding polysyllabic words c. relies upon many strategies d. makes little sense of what is read
Answer: c 11.4
Which of the following is not a component of metacognition? a. self-regulation. b. task regulation. c. self-knowledge d. task knowledge
Answer: b 11.5
Which of the following question is not asked when students monitor their comprehension? a. Are there any words I can't pronounce? b. Are there any words I don't understand? c. Are there any ideas that don't fit together? d. Are there any facts missing or not clearly explained?
Answer: a
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Explicit instruction attempts to answer ___________. a. what, how, when, who b. how, when, where, what c. where, why, when, how d. why, how, when, what
Answer: d 11.7
Which of the following strategy is not developed when using think alouds? a. predicting b. decoding c. linking new information with old information d. visualizing
Answer: b 11.8
When teachers use __________, four comprehension activities are enhanced. a. think-alouds b. QARs c. reciprocal teaching d. CD maps
Answer: c 11.9
Which of the following comprehension activities is not developed by reciprocal teaching? a. predicting b. generalizing c. clarifying d. questioning
Answer: b 11.10 Which of the following does not describe where an answer to a question is found in QARs? a. teacher and you b. in the text c. in your head d. author and you Answer: a
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98 11.11 Which of the following vocabulary strategy provides a framework for organizing conceptual information? a. vocabulary-building b. context clues c. VSS d. CD maps Answer: d 11.12 The VSS strategy encourages students to respond to all the following questions except: a. Where is the word found in the text? b. What is a synonym for the word? c. What do the team members think the word means? d. Why did the team think the class should learn the word? Answer: b 11.13 CD information can be organized in terms of three types of relationships. Which relationship is not associated with CD word maps? a. antonyms b. illustrations c. properties d. comparisons Answer: a 11.14 Which of the following is not a typographic clue? a. pictures b. parenthetical definitions c. footnotes d. pronunciation key Answer: d 11.15 When students look at the word itself for information clues about its meaning, they are relying upon __________. a. syntactic contextual clues b. typographic clues c. word structure d. semantic contextual clues Answer: c
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99 11.16 Teachers ___________ to support content literacy and learning. a. lecture b. assign groups c. assign work to be done at home d. scaffold instruction Answer: d
ESSAY QUESTIONS Essay questions include a mixture of questions designed (1) to help students apply and synthesize ideas, and (2) to help students clarify and understand ideas. 11.1 How can teachers be responsive to the literacy needs of struggling learners while maintaining high standards for content learning? Discuss. 11.2 The authors state: "One of the important ways that teachers respond to the literacy needs of struggling readers is to scaffold instruction so that students become aware of and competent with strategies that support learning with text." How does a teacher scaffold instruction? Explain. 11.3 Discuss the factors that influence a struggling reader. What is the teacher's responsibility to help the student overcome these factors? 11.4 Discuss: "Reading is a strategic act." 11.5 What are the characteristics of an independent reader? What specific skills and strategies do independent readers have? Discuss. 11.6 Choose one comprehension and one vocabulary strategy you plan to incorporate into your teaching. Discuss what the strategies you chose, why you choose each, and how you will implement into your teaching.
Chapter 11 VOCABULARY AND KEY TERMS cognitive processes comprehension building strategies Concept of Definition (CD) context metacognitive processes modelling QAR reciprocal teaching scaffolding instruction
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100 strategy instruction struggling readers syntactic/semantic clues textually explicit think-aloud typographic clues vocabulary building strategies Vocabulary Self-Collection Strategy (VSS) word structure
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